Whatever

January temperature varies from day to day, year to year. Three years ago we had bitter cold, but 2013 has been so nice that we’ve had the upstairs porch door open most nights. When coolish, one or two clicks makes perfect the full length heating pad under the sheet. We like sleeping with the door open, but if there’s a breeze coming off the Gulf we open it just six or eight inches, with a weight stopping it from swinging wider. My hope is that this early spring will stretch through May, even into June.

Maybe my brother or sister remember, but I don’t recall my father saying how Mom and Pop heated this house in the nineteen-teens when he was a boy here. My aunt EG said that winters they hung a tarpaulin round the staircase to keep the heat downstairs. There must have been some pretty cold nights in Alfred’s room, where Linda and I sleep now. My father liked floor furnaces, and in the 1960s he had a large one installed between the living room and dining room. It was effective for heating the entire house upstairs and down; but dangerous for little children to be around, and after my father died my mother and I had it disconnected and covered over.

Central heat and air conditioning has been installed in increments over the years, such that there are ridiculously four separate systems. With four HVAC compressors and a generator lined up beside the house, the Calhoun Avenue side looks like an industrial zone. Doesn’t bother me much, if it ever does maybe I’ll put a fence to screen it. Life Is Good when the weather is so lovely, as now, that none of that machinery is running.

Preaching this coming Sunday. Probably something about God. Suggestions are always welcome, right up until the processional hymn starts.

For early breakfast, a can of sardines. Generated early dawn research on the best tasting sardines. The online expert likes Portuguese sardines in olive oil. Portugal and Spain. Angelo Parodi, Matiz Gallego, Idamar, Gonsalves, Da Morgada, Albo. Priced Matiz Gallego on Amazon.com just now: $10.21. A case? No, a can. The original cheapskate, Bubba will stick to domestic; if they’re nasty, as domestic in water usually are, I add extra virgin olive oil or mustard.